had there been

• “Her attentions affected me greatly; and I spoke of them to Madam de Warrens, without supposing any mystery in the matter, but had there been one I should equally have divulged it, for to have kept a secret of any kind from her would have been impossible.”

  The Confessions of J J Rousseau

• “She did everything that was required; and she would have done the same had there been no such requisition: but all this morality was subordinate to the principles of M. Tavel, or rather she pretended to see nothing in religion that contradicted them; thus she would have favored twenty lovers in a day, without any idea of a crime, her conscience being no more moved in that particular than her passions.”

  The Confessions of J J Rousseau

• “Neither had there been about the bodies of the maunts, but that was on rockier ground, in a drier hour.”

  Son of a Witch

• “Had the battle begun three hours earlier, had the visibility been that of the Falkland Islands battle, had there been the same ample sea room given Sturdee against Spee, the outcome at Jutland would have been different.”

  Castles of Steel

• “But in his abject misery he had found his way up among the great friends of his family at Rome, and had there been charged with the parricide, because Chrysogonus and the Tituses began to be afraid of what these great friends might do.”

  The Life of Cicero

• “And behold! — were there thanks, was there praise, had there been perhaps a hint or two of splendid decorations to follow? — no, indeed, cried the Gerente, hammering himself upon the forehead and chest with such knock-out blows that he was obliged to resort, to reviving sips of arguardiente, no indeed!”

  Tour de Force

• “At that moment, had there been any way he could have got off Matlock Island, he would have fled from her like Orestes from the Eumenides.”

  The Thorn Birds

• “Mr. Bice was picked up again on the 17th, having been unmolested during his visit; but two of the 'Lepers,' who had been at Espiritu Santo, had brought back a fearful story that a small two-masted vessel had there been mastered by the natives, and the crew killed and eaten in revenge for the slaughter of some men of their own by another ship's company some time back.”

  Life of John Coleridge Patteson

• “Barchester Towers would hardly be so well known as it is had there been no Framley Parsonage and no Last Chronicle of Barset.”

  Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

• “It was the first extensive wheat crop of South Australia; the first harvest-home of the bunch of people, who had there been shaken on to the sea-beach.”

  The Romance of a Pro-Consul

Show 10 more examples...